APRIL 3, 1944

WASHINGTON, Sunday—Now let me tell you more about my visit to
Brazil.

Not far from Recife, Vice Admiral Ingram has established a
recreation center where our Navy men, who go out to sea in the smaller
craft which do the really hard patrol and convoy work, can spend two
or three days between trips. The building was already there when our
men arrived and has been adapted to their use. I think it was to have
been a hospital and therefore there are some beautiful sundecks from
which you get a view of a lovely countryside all around.

The men have horseshoe pitching and games and quite a number of
nice looking horses which they can ride. A boy from Tennessee, in a
few weeks, had built up a pretty nursery garden, and you will recognize
that this was quite a feat when I tell you that all their water
comes to them in barrels by cart loads.

In Recife, we drove along the docks, and the length of that
drive gave one an idea of the amount of shipping activity there. When
we came to one of our cruisers, Rear Admiral Read and I went aboard.
It was a great chance for me to see this ship and her men, who have
done such valiant work. They had painted on her side three swastikas,
which means three German ships sunk. You will remember reading about
this in the papers some time ago.

Later, we drove to the Plaza to review some Brazilian Army units.
They went through a delightful drill. Then, with great fervor in
Portuguese, the soldiers sang "God Bless America." This song is quite
appropriate for any country in North or South America, so I was delighted
to find it was translated—and evidently liked, because it
was sung so lustily by these Brazilian troops.

We also visited the Brazilian navalapprenticeschool. This interested
me greatly. They take boys of sixteen, give them both
academic and practical training and, at seventeen, put them into the
Navy as third-class seamen. They are permitted to rise to the rank of
lieutenant-commander. I don't suppose that many of them get beyond
the rank of non-commissioned officers, but they often come from
families where opportunities are scarce.

There are also schools for fishermen and their families which
Madame Vargas has started and which promote a knowledge of the ways
of preserving and using fish which make fishing a source of better income.
The people in the area around Recife live almost entirely from
the sea and furnish most of the Brazilian Navy with its sailors.

Their fishing boats fascinated me. They are just logs tied together.
No nails are used. The anchor is a stone around which they
tie sticks. They sail with one big sail, which, to my eyes, seemed a
rather difficult rig to manage. But, in these "jangadas," from which
you would think a good wave would wash them overboard, they venture
far afield, even going all the way down the coast to Rio.